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Armor Fix Idea [D&D 3.5]

Armor Overhaul

Armor is a subject that is very bothersome for most people. There is a level of abstraction inherent in the functionality of armor beyond what most mechanics have, and while abstraction in of itself isn't bad, the result was something that didn't really work. AC is sort-of dodging, sort of blocking, but the one thing most people expect out of armor, softening a heavy blow simply isn't there. Add to that that at high levels scaling is such that AC is almost always lower than attack bonuses, and armor may as well not exist. Indeed, many characters who run around in plain old regular clothes are better at avoiding damage than heavy armor wearers. This is something that I think most people will agree isn't right.

A common solution to this problem is to introduce mechanics such as the popular armor as Damage Reduction option presented in Unearthed Arcana. This mechanic has well documented flaws, primarily that the value of armor varies wildy from encounter to encounter, and scales poorly. At level 1 armor makes a character nearly invulnerable to many enemies, while at level 20, their armor is almost as useless as it was in the normal system.

The modifications proposed here are intended to change the core system surrounding armor to make it more valuable across all levels, and to provide an advantage for characters wearing heavier armors.

Fixing the RNG

The first step to making armor more useful is to bring the RNG in line, so armor can be more useful in a wider variety of situations. To fix the RNG, the following changes are to be made:

Natural Armor and Armor no longer stack-Natural armor acts in all ways like regular armor that is a part of your body, and has no weight or other penalties.Shields now provide a deflection bonus to AC-With this change, Shields now provide a potentially higher and cheaper way to gain a deflection bonus to AC, but the two cannot be stacked. This does weaken shields, but for the purposes of narrowing the RNG this really had to happen.Base Attack Bonus is added to AC-This is the biggest change, but all characters get a scaling bonus to armor class. This both helps high BAB classes, and provides much needed scaling to keep up with attack bonuses. A character using the same gear at level 20 is going to have a much better defense than at level 1. Iterative Attacks cap at a -5 penalty-That is to say that PCs now follow the same rules for attacking monsters have always followed. So a level 16 Fighter on a full attack has an attack sequence of 16/11/11/11. This is done to ensure the attacks remain on the RNG, with the raised AC later iteratives were even more likely to be useless.Base Armor is 5, not 10-This is a simple change that was needed to make it possible to balance the RNG without rewriting all of the armors. The basic reason is because attack rolls get their highest attribute, but armor gets the armor value plus an attribute, at a value that's always equal to roughly 8. This means until attack attributes hit 8, armor has an advantage right out of the gate.

These changes pretty much cover it for how to affect player characters. High ACs are now doable without spending half your gold on assorted bonuses from gear. A 20th level character is now most likely to have an AC of around 45+deflection mod. Attack bonuses at this level are usually around 35-40, so this seems like a good place to be.

One further change currently under consideration is the limitation of deflection bonuses. For example making it so shields can't be enchanted with +x modifiers (though could still get +x equivalent enchantments, waiving the normal +1 minimum requirement), and capping deflection bonuses at +2 across the board. Currently a character can get 50-52 AC with full BAB, capped armor, and a shield, this is nearly impossible to be hit by a medium BAB character, and at this time I'm not sure that's a good thing.

Sidebar: Converting Monsters

Spoiler

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Converting Monsters to this system is a bit harder. Unfortunately, a lot of monsters have BAB that far exceeds their expected level. Additionally, most of them were given a huge amount of natural armor to keep their ACs up to par. Unfortunately without rewriting the monster manuals there's nothing I can do about this. I can provide a simple conversion guideline, but ultimately converting monsters will involve a bit of guesswork or modified mechanics.

The guideline I would go with is this: Natural Armor = (8+1/4 CR) - Dex Mod - Size Mod. This gets you a natural armor level roughly in line with player's armor levels, with a higher value for big creatures, and a lower value for tiny creatures. This will be important in the next section.

You can stop at this point, and most people probably will want to. The other half of fixing this is modifying BAB values of monsters with high HD to bring their attacks and defenses in line. There are basically two ways this can be handled. The first is to leave them as they are. Provide a misc bonus to AC to bring their AC after the natural armor conversion to their current AC levels, and leave the rest of the stat block alone. This method is simple and to the point, but has potential for imbalanced stats with certain monsters that will be very hard to overcome.

If you wish to fix that, the second method is to adjust BAB to be based off CR instead of HD. So a Dragon would have a BAB equal to CR, an animal would have a BAB equal to 3/4 CR, and an undead would have a BAB equal to 1/2 CR.

For example, converting a Dire Tiger: it is CR 8 large creature with a +2 dexterity. Using our formula above, this gives us:

So the Dire Tiger gets 9 natural armor. As it is a CR 8 animal (3/4 BAB), it gets a +6 BAB. Thus its total AC is 5+6(3/4 CR)+9(natural)+2(Dex)-1(Size) = 21, which should be comparable to a PC of its level. Its attack bonus is +14 with its primary attack, and +9 with its secondary.

For comparison, a Level 8 Fighter with +2 weapon and armor will have a 22 strength, 8 armor, +1 dex, and 8 BAB. Giving him a AC of 5+10(armor)+8(BAB)+1(dex)=24 AC, and +8(BAB)+6(str)+2(enhancement)= +16 to hit with his highest attack, +11 with his secondary. Meaning the tiger hits him on an 10 with his primary, on a 15 with secondaries, while the Fighter hits the Tiger on a 5 with his primary, and a 10 with his secondary.

Providing a Secondary Benefit for Armor
Okay, so now that the RNG is more or less fixed so that armor actually matters against level appropriate enemies, that leaves the other half of what I discussed above. To make armor actually make you better at taking a hit that isn't avoided completely. For this, I introduce a new spin on an old mechanic:

Armor and Natural Armor provides temporary HP equal to its armor value, that refreshes at the start of each turn. This value is multiplied by the number of iterative attacks you have granted by base attack bonus, capped at x4 (so x1 at +0, x2 at +6, x3 at +11, x4 at +16).

Yep, it's that simple. Your armor gives you a refreshing pool of HP, so when you take a hit, you can shrug part or all of it off due to your armor. Eventually they will break through the armor, but this ability allows you to soften a big hit, or block a few little hits before taking real damage.

As an example, a first level Rogue with a Chain Shirt will have 4 temporary HP that refreshes each round. A 11th level Fighter with +3 Full Plate would have 33 hp that refreshes each round.

Monsters work the same way, getting their natural armor multiplied for every 5 points of BAB above 1, with a cap of x4. So the Dire Tiger example above with 9 natural armor and +6 BAB gets 18 temporary HP each round, while the 8th level Fighter gets 20 temporary HP each round.

Optional Rule: Armor Degradation

This was originally brought up as a possible balancing mechanic for the much higher temporary HP pools initially suggested. With the change in the current iteration, this is not needed for balance. That said, there is a niche for people who enjoy a grittier campaign. This optional rule is for people who enjoy such campaigns.

When using this option, any time an attack reduces your temporary HP from armor to 0, the armor degrades slightly. Its armor value is reduced by 1, until you are able to repair the armor. This reduces both the AC bonus and the temporary HP gained from the armor each round. The reduced bonus remains until you take the time to repair the armor. Repairing armor takes approximately 15 minutes per point, and requires 5 GP worth of materials for each point repaired.

Should an armor have its bonus reduced to 0, fixing it requires access to a forge, and takes approximately 4 hours, plus materials equivalent to half of what it takes to craft the armor.

Original post within the spoiler. If you're confused by responses on the first page or so, it's because the responses were to this, and not the above post. It's the same basic concept, but implementation has changed a lot.

Spoiler

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So I had a random thought on armor, and while there are a couple topics I could post it in, it is radically different enough I didn't want to put it in one of those. So here I am with a new thread on armor.

But here's the thought: What if Armor provided a pool of refreshing temporary HP, as opposed to making it harder to hit at all, or acting as damage reduction?

Since HP/temp HP is already an abstraction, I was thinking have it scale with level. Say the current armor bonus times half level (round up). So a level 1 character in leather gets 2 temp HP per round, while one with Splint Mail (the heaviest you can probably afford at level 1) gets 6 temp hp per round. At level 20, this is 70 hp per round vs 130 hp per round. (alternatively you could drop armor enhancement bonuses, and make it times level, giving you 40 hp from leather, 80 from a chain shirt, or 160 from full plate).

If you wanted a little more complexity/realism you could even say something like every time the armor's temp hp is reduced to 0, the armor's bonus is reduced by 1/2 level (or by level in the second scenario), until the armor is repaired (ideally repairs would be something that could be done in a few minutes of downtime). So if leather armor gets broken through twice, it's pretty much useless. On the other hand Plate is still at least somewhat useful until it's been broken through 8 times.

The downside of armor would be that max dex still applies, so you choose between more durability, or the ability to dodge more attacks with a high dexterity. This would be something ideally to go hand in hand with something to fix the RNG (a la add BAB to AC and iterative penalties cap at -5), so that the AC bonus from dexterity would matter more across all levels. This way you have a real choice, get hit rarely, but when you do get hit, it hurts. Or get hit frequently, but shrug a large portion of the damage off.

Anyway, what do you guys think? I personally think it's a good solution to the normal problems inherent in armor as DR, while accomplishing a similar feel. It's pretty rough at the moment, but I think it does have potential.

Last edited by Seerow; 2012-01-11 at 02:29 PM.

If my text is blue, I'm being sarcastic.But you already knew that, right?

Re: Armor Fix Idea [D&D 3.5]

Originally Posted by Seerow

Since HP/temp HP is already an abstraction, I was thinking have it scale with level. Say the current armor bonus times half level (round up). So a level 1 character in leather gets 2 temp HP per round, while one with Splint Mail (the heaviest you can probably afford at level 1) gets 6 temp hp per round. At level 20, this is 70 hp per round vs 130 hp per round. (alternatively you could drop armor enhancement bonuses, and make it times level, giving you 40 hp from leather, 80 from a chain shirt, or 160 from full plate).

I'm sorry, but I'm a little confused; how often does this temporary HP pool refresh?
It seems like you saying that every round (at level 20) your parties tank would need to take 130 points of damage before you even scratch his regular HP pool. Also, if you don't get the temp HP down to zero (like you only hit him for 128 or something) to break the armor, does he start the next round at 2, 130 again, or some other number?

I would assume I'm just misunderstanding this, because if not then I think it's a little OP.

Last edited by Deepbluediver; 2012-01-09 at 11:49 PM.

Originally Posted by Rater202

It's not called common because the sense is common, it's called common because it's about common things.

Re: Armor Fix Idea [D&D 3.5]

It's a bit more bookkeeping ("did you remember to apply your armor HP bonus this round?" and "What's 5 times 7 divided by 2?"), but that's actually quite cool.

Of course, it makes characters ridiculously easy to hit (just like all armor-to-DR or armor-to-HP systems), and that whole "don't give a damn about AC" problem kicks in at even lower levels than before, and certain players low-level players may not enjoy giving up a 30% chance to avoid all damage in exchange for 3-12 HP.

EDIT:

I'm sorry, but I'm a little confused; how often does this temporary HP pool refresh?

I think it's per-round.

It seems like you saying that every round (at level 20) your parties tank would need to take 130 points of damage before you even scratch his regular HP pool. Also, if you don't get the temp HP down to zero (like you only hit him for 128 or something) to break the armor, does he start the next round at 2, 130 again, or some other number?

I would assume I'm just misunderstanding this, because if not then I think it's a little OP.

At level 20, a disintegrate (3 spell levels behind what you should be casting if you want to be scary) deals 240 damage on average, blowing beyond temp HP and dealing over 100 damage besides. No, it's not all that OP considering what's out there.

Re: Armor Fix Idea [D&D 3.5]

Originally Posted by Deepbluediver

I'm sorry, but I'm a little confused; how often does this temporary HP pool refresh?
It seems like you saying that every round (at level 20) your parties tank would need to take 130 points of damage before you even scratch his regular HP pool. Also, if you don't get the temp HP down to zero (like you only hit him for 128 or something) so the armor doesn't break, does he start the next round at 2, 130 again, or some other number.

I would assume I'm just misunderstanding this, because if not then I think it's a little OP.

No you got it right. It's per round.

Also remember that against a CR20 monster, he's either not being attacked via HP at all, or he's probably being attacked for several hundred HP a round anyway. This just makes it possible for him to actually take the hits, rather than needing to stack up lots of miss chances to avoid them or make the enemy dead before they get a counter attack.

edit:

Of course, it makes characters ridiculously easy to hit (just like all armor-to-DR or armor-to-HP systems), and that whole "don't give a damn about AC" problem kicks in at even lower levels than before, and certain players low-level players may not enjoy giving up a 30% chance to avoid all damage in exchange for 3-12 HP.

Well that is why I mentioned it working better if using a RNG fix similar to what Legend has, giving BAB as a bonus to AC and capping itteratives at -5 like monster attacks. This keeps AC at least somewhat relevant though obviously still with things weighted towards light armor users for dodging, while heavy armor users are probably still getting hit around 80% of the time.

It's a bit more bookkeeping ("did you remember to apply your armor HP bonus this round?" and "What's 5 times 7 divided by 2?"), but that's actually quite cool.

It is a bit more book keeping, but it's a manageable amount. The X*Y/2 should only come up once a level, and after that you only use simple subtraction (assuming you use the degradation option, which I haven't sold myself 100% on yet). It's even easier if you just use X*Y and eschew enhancement bonuses (or have enhancement bonuses on armor go to AC even though armor itself doesn't grant AC anymore. Though that feels a little weird)

Last edited by Seerow; 2012-01-09 at 11:56 PM.

If my text is blue, I'm being sarcastic.But you already knew that, right?

Re: Armor Fix Idea [D&D 3.5]

Eh... I can see the value in it, I'm just not sure I'd use it. DR works kinda similarly, and I actually rather like the Armor as DR variant, so I'll stick with that until you come up with a dang good reason to use this instead .

Re: Armor Fix Idea [D&D 3.5]

@ JustToBrowse
It's no more bookkeeping than if you try to actually use hardness and item-HP to keep track of who's equipment is getting broken.

Originally Posted by Seerow

No you got it right.

Also remember that against a CR20 monster, he's either not being attacked via HP at all, or he's probably being attacked for several hundred HP a round anyway. This just makes it possible for him to actually take the hits, rather than needing to stack up lots of miss chances to avoid them or make the enemy dead before they get a counter attack.

So....refreshing temporary HP while wearing armor....mechanically, whats different about this than Damage Resistance?

Also, the broken-armor thing is well...kinda broken. If you are fighting a group of creatures, and you can expect to reduce their number (and incoming damage) each round, then maybe your steadily-breaking armor might keep up. But if you are fighting a single large enemy that will take several rounds to die and they manage to overcome 130 damage in one round, then it's only going to get rapidly worse from there. It's an interesting idea, certainly, but I'm just not seeing how it might work yet.

Edit: What exactly is the "damage resistance" problem you mentioned earlier? I just posted a major update to my own armor-thread earlier tonight and DR figured into it very heavily; I'd love to know if I've missed something horribly obvious (again).

Last edited by Deepbluediver; 2012-01-10 at 12:03 AM.

Originally Posted by Rater202

It's not called common because the sense is common, it's called common because it's about common things.

Re: Armor Fix Idea [D&D 3.5]

Originally Posted by Wyntonian

Eh... I can see the value in it, I'm just not sure I'd use it. DR works kinda similarly, and I actually rather like the Armor as DR variant, so I'll stick with that until you come up with a dang good reason to use this instead .

Originally Posted by Deepbluediver

So....refreshing temporary HP while wearing armor....mechanically, whats different about this than Damage Resistance?

Edit: What exactly is the "damage resistance" problem you mentioned earlier? I just posted a major update to my own armor-thread earlier tonight and DR figured into it very heavily; I'd love to know if I've missed something horribly obvious (again).

Responding to both here: The problem with DR is pretty simple. DR applies against each attack individually, and does not scale. At low levels, a few points of DR can make you immune to a literally infinite number of goblins. On the other hand, at high level that same few points of DR doesn't do a thing for you.

The other problem is that DR is more beneficial against enemies with lots of weaker attacks, and much more susceptible to a single big attack. This means it inordinately hurts two weapon fighting, monsters with lots of natural attacks, or hordes of weaker creatures.

The refreshing temporary HP pool makes sure that the damage blocked remains relatively constant regardless of enemy type, and the level based scaling to HP lets it stay relevant even into late game levels. As long as the enemy is capable of dealing at least as much damage per round as your armor can block, your armor is useful, but isn't making you immune to damage. And any on level challenge should be able to do that without too much trouble.

Oh one other benefit of the temporary HP: It also applies to damage dealing spells, and not just melee attacks. Some people may consider this a negative, but I think it's a good thing.

Also, the broken-armor thing is well...kinda broken. If you are fighting a group of creatures, and you can expect to reduce their number (and incoming damage) each round, then maybe your steadily-breaking armor might keep up. But if you are fighting a single large enemy that will take several rounds to die and they manage to overcome 130 damage in one round, then it's only going to get rapidly worse from there. It's an interesting idea, certainly, but I'm just not seeing how it might work yet.

Like I mentioned in my edit above, I'm not totally sold on the degradation mechanic myself. It was put out as an option if you want to allow the eventual wearing down of armor, so it's nearly impossible to be completely immune, while still giving a fair amount of protection. (Consider +5 Full Plate at level 20. You start with 130 blocked per round, second round it's 120, third it's 110, and so on. Even with the armor getting worn down each round, the armor overall blocked 910 hp damage, which is a huge boon. But combat probably shouldn't last that long, and it would only matter if you don't get the few minutes to fix the armor before moving on to a new combat.

If my text is blue, I'm being sarcastic.But you already knew that, right?

Re: Armor Fix Idea [D&D 3.5]

@ JustToBrowse
It's no more bookkeeping than if you try to actually use hardness and item-HP to keep track of who's equipment is getting broken.

I never really did... I guess that makes sense

So....refreshing temporary HP while wearing armor....mechanically, whats different about this than Damage Resistance?

Well, DR kicks in on every attack landed, so either it scales well and everybody wants armor because it's so good, or it doesn't scale well and looks good for the 1st few levels before going obsolete.

Also, the broken-armor thing is well...kinda broken. If you are fighting a group of creatures, and you can expect to reduce their number (and incoming damage) each round, then maybe your steadily-breaking armor might keep up. But if you are fighting a single large enemy that will take several rounds to die and they manage to overcome 130 damage in one round, then it's only going to get rapidly worse from there. It's an interesting idea, certainly, but I'm just not seeing how it might work yet.

You are hurting their AC just as bad as they are hurting yours. Nat Armor would be degraded just like regular armor (though some sort of fix is needed to deal with the monsters with loads of NA and huge HD for their CR), so fights start off with less damage than expected being dealt, and escalate into larger amounts of damage being dealt, making combat for both opponents more lethal as time goes on. It's not worse for that one player, but more dangerous for everyone (which is nice for grinding combats)

Re: Armor Fix Idea [D&D 3.5]

Originally Posted by Seerow

Responding to both here: The problem with DR is pretty simple. DR applies against each attack individually, and does not scale. At low levels, a few points of DR can make you immune to a literally infinite number of goblins. On the other hand, at high level that same few points of DR doesn't do a thing for you.

The other problem is that DR is more beneficial against enemies with lots of weaker attacks, and much more susceptible to a single big attack. This means it inordinately hurts two weapon fighting, monsters with lots of natural attacks, or hordes of weaker creatures.

The refreshing temporary HP pool makes sure that the damage blocked remains relatively constant regardless of enemy type, and the level based scaling to HP lets it stay relevant even into late game levels. As long as the enemy is capable of dealing at least as much damage per round as your armor can block, your armor is useful, but isn't making you immune to damage. And any on level challenge should be able to do that without too much trouble.

Oh one other benefit of the temporary HP: It also applies to damage dealing spells, and not just melee attacks. Some people may consider this a negative, but I think it's a good thing.

Well, I don't know of any of stats that scale well if you never increase them. I would assume that most people don't count on DR 3 having the same impact at level 20 as at level 2.
With this model, DR is still DR no matter what name you call it, even if it's collective DR instead of spread out.
There should be plenty of balanced monsters for you to fight, and if your DM really wants to be a **** then he'll just have the Dragon aim his breath weapon at the parties wizard and 1-shot him anyway.

I think that DR is just to hard to get and to expensive at higher levels. Plus, most of it comes in the form of x/magic; just change it all to x/- and you'll get alot more use out of it.

In my own armor fix I make it easier to get decent (I think) amounts of DR at higher levels; if you haven't read the update already go check it out.

Like I mentioned in my edit above, I'm not totally sold on the degradation mechanic myself. It was put out as an option if you want to allow the eventual wearing down of armor, so it's nearly impossible to be completely immune, while still giving a fair amount of protection. (Consider +5 Full Plate at level 20. You start with 130 blocked per round, second round it's 120, third it's 110, and so on. Even with the armor getting worn down each round, the armor overall blocked 910 hp damage, which is a huge boon. But combat probably shouldn't last that long, and it would only matter if you don't get the few minutes to fix the armor before moving on to a new combat.

Ah ok, I wasn't sure what you meant by "fix". Cause if you are going for the realism angle, then your fighter is gonna be lugging a portable forge around with him or hitting up the wizard for Mend spells :P

Originally Posted by Rater202

It's not called common because the sense is common, it's called common because it's about common things.

Re: Armor Fix Idea [D&D 3.5]

Originally Posted by Deepbluediver

Well, I don't know of any of stats that scale well if you never increase them. I would assume that most people don't count on DR 3 having the same impact at level 20 as at level 2.
With this model, DR is still DR no matter what name you call it, even if it's collective DR instead of spread out.
There should be plenty of balanced monsters for you to fight, and if your DM really wants to be a **** then he'll just have the Dragon aim his breath weapon at the parties wizard and 1-shot him anyway.

I think that DR is just to hard to get and to expensive at higher levels. Plus, most of it comes in the form of x/magic; just change it all to x/- and you'll get alot more use out of it.

In my own armor fix I make it easier to get decent (I think) amounts of DR at higher levels; if you haven't read the update already go check it out.

Well even if you scale the DR, the other problems still stand: It's all or nothing, it applies more against multiple weak creatures, or multiple creatures with weak attacks than against stronger creatures with fewer attacks, it doesn't apply against spells, etc. Temporary HP is a better mechanic because it's easier to balance across a diverse range of encounters. DR will vary wildly from too strong to not strong enough even among encounters of the same level, where temporary HP really won't change that much.

Ah ok, I wasn't sure what you meant by "fix". Cause if you are going for the realism angle, then your fighter is gonna be lugging a portable forge around with him or hitting up the wizard for Mend spells :P

Heh, yeah I see what you mean. I was thinking more along the lines of repairing damaged straps, banging out dents, etc. Things someone with little to no skill could manage with a bit of time and cheap (ie cheap enough you dont need to bother tracking) materials. Not so much reforging the armor. I was thinking more realistic, but not quite that gritty (though it wouldn't be a bad optional rule for a gritty style campaign where you want to wear down your pcs a lot... but it will greatly encourage dex based characters with light armor)

If my text is blue, I'm being sarcastic.But you already knew that, right?

Re: Armor Fix Idea [D&D 3.5]

The problem with this is that it makes rocket tag play even more mandatory than it already was, and in particular hurts defensive (high-AC, low-DPR) fighters.

If you define rocket tag as over 150 damage per round from an entire group, then sure.

I think you would be VERY hard pressed to find a group (monster or PC) that as a whole couldn't deal the damage to get through the armor HP.

As for high-AC low-DPR fighters, this is better for them than armor as DR at least, as here their damage stacks with everyone else's for bypassing armor, with DR they lose a much larger chunk of their damage than everyone else, so it hurts them more.

It may be worse for them than the regular method, but let's be honest: Low damage high defense turtles are already a bad option. Making it a little worse honestly does nothing bad to the game, as that is an option that can and should be improved via other means.

If my text is blue, I'm being sarcastic.But you already knew that, right?

Re: Armor Fix Idea [D&D 3.5]

I think this is a pretty neat concept, but I don't quite like the implementation. Call me a Tier 4-and-pretends-ability-damage-doesn't-exist kind of guy, but I think I'd rather keep the ACs as they are, in addition to having armors grant a simple (Armor bonus) temp HP/round, so a +5 Full Plate gives 13 hp/round. Just something to take the edge off being in the front.

I could see the amount doubling for each iterative attack you possess from BAB (I love gating abilities with BAB and banning Divine Power), so a +1 Breast Plate which gives 6 temp HP at level 5 would increase to 12 temp HP at level 6. And the 13 armor Full Plate gives 52 temp HP/turn at 16 BAB. Still not as huge as your numbers, but also provides AC.

Re: Armor Fix Idea [D&D 3.5]

Originally Posted by Pechvarry

I think this is a pretty neat concept, but I don't quite like the implementation. Call me a Tier 4-and-pretends-ability-damage-doesn't-exist kind of guy, but I think I'd rather keep the ACs as they are, in addition to having armors grant a simple (Armor bonus) temp HP/round, so a +5 Full Plate gives 13 hp/round. Just something to take the edge off being in the front.

I could see the amount doubling for each iterative attack you possess from BAB (I love gating abilities with BAB and banning Divine Power), so a +1 Breast Plate which gives 6 temp HP at level 5 would increase to 12 temp HP at level 6. And the 13 armor Full Plate gives 52 temp HP/turn at 16 BAB. Still not as huge as your numbers, but also provides AC.

This is a reasonable alternative, particularly with the BAB scaling. The only thing is I was imagining it more along the lines of the heavy armor wearer gets hit more often, but takes less damage. With your suggestion, Heavy Armor gets hit both less often and takes less damage. This may not be a bad thing (as I do think heavy armor, being a harder to get proficiency SHOULD mean something), but it is an important point to consider. Light/non-armor wearers under this system wouldn't be just have higher attribute requirements, but would be substantially squishier even with good attributes, than their heavy armor counter parts.

Also, this does make converting monsters a little trickier, they (mostly) don't get bonus attacks from BAB, but instead from extra natural attacks. Would you make it still scale with itteratives (making monsters a little weaker since they don't get them), based on natural attacks, or based on BAB regardless of iteratives?

If my text is blue, I'm being sarcastic.But you already knew that, right?

Re: Armor Fix Idea [D&D 3.5]

So, we're taking Stone Power's concept and massively expanding on it? Hmm, I'm not sure how much I like a by round total. I'd be comfortable with an encounter model, as you create a buffer between yourself and others that you repair between, which makes more sense to me from a verisimilitude perspective, whether that's putting plates back where they're supposed to be, removing arrows, replacing cut straps, etc.

Re: Armor Fix Idea [D&D 3.5]

Originally Posted by Cieyrin

So, we're taking Stone Power's concept and massively expanding on it? Hmm, I'm not sure how much I like a by round total. I'd be comfortable with an encounter model, as you create a buffer between yourself and others that you repair between, which makes more sense to me from a verisimilitude perspective, whether that's putting plates back where they're supposed to be, removing arrows, replacing cut straps, etc.

Does this include shields?

No, does not include shields. Likely just Armor and Natural Armor, with the two being made to explicitly not stack for the temp HP.

An encounter model does make sense, but then the values need to be much higher even than my initial proposal to make it worth it. I say this from experience with video games that have armor increase max HP... armor typically just gets ignored entirely in these games. Take it if it comes free, but typically look for other stuff to get instead. Having it refresh each round makes the mechanic more meaningful.

As an aside, the more I sit on it, the more I like Pechavery's take on it. I might reduce armor values by 1 or 2 for some armors, so you still have the trade off between AC and temp HP, but the tradeoff would be 1-2 points of AC, as opposed to 6-7, since the temp HP is lower. That change may even be reflected via special materials, maybe something like adamantine increases effective armor for temp hp by 2, while mithril increases max dex by 2. Also since it is a lower amount of temp HP, then the degradation mechanic is wholly unnecessary unless you want a gritty feeling game.

Last edited by Seerow; 2012-01-10 at 07:55 PM.

If my text is blue, I'm being sarcastic.But you already knew that, right?

Re: Armor Fix Idea [D&D 3.5]

If you define rocket tag as over 150 damage per round from an entire group, then sure.

I think you would be VERY hard pressed to find a group (monster or PC) that as a whole couldn't deal the damage to get through the armor HP.

I'm wondering what kind of creatures your groups end up facing off against that 150 damage is nothing to be surprised at and you're expecting "several hundred damage" every round.

An "old" Red Dragon, with CR 20, has a breath attack that deals 16d10, or averaging between 80 and 100 damage per use. On the rounds when a dragon can't use its breath weapon, this dragons Claw, Bite, Wing, Crush and Tail attacks are split 8 ways, plenty of opportunities for DR to take effect; assuming I'm reading my tables right of course.

While I agree that armor needed a buff, and your system is very original, I'm not sure it is balanced against most monsters. The only time I could see this really being a worthwhile change is if you are going up against an enemy spellcaster, who can cast the equivalent of a dragon's breath attack every round, and even then the numbers seem a little high.
Maybe we could have something similar as an option for magically enhanced armor; and leave the normal AC/DR in place for the rest of it.

The other thing is, while this certainly evens out the disparity between fast-multi attacks and big-single ones, I can't help but worry if that will take some of the excitement out of games. To much tuning turns every encounter into a math battle, where the side with the bigger numbers wins, and strategy, tactics, and fun go out the window. It's perfectly possible I'm overstating the issue, though, and if you like this method of doing things, than I'd be happy to see a full write up.

Last edited by Deepbluediver; 2012-01-10 at 08:35 PM.

Originally Posted by Rater202

It's not called common because the sense is common, it's called common because it's about common things.

Re: Armor Fix Idea [D&D 3.5]

If you define rocket tag as over 150 damage per round from an entire group, then sure.

Yeah, I suppose when not dealing with duels, focus fire can do the job.

It still hurts defensive builds, though.

As for high-AC low-DPR fighters, this is better for them than armor as DR at least, as here their damage stacks with everyone else's for bypassing armor, with DR they lose a much larger chunk of their damage than everyone else, so it hurts them more.

Depends. If they're really low on damage per attack, then armor-as-DR is worse, but if they have moderate damage per attack and a poor attack roll (so they're not hitting more than once a round at high levels), then it's worse for them than armor-as-DR.

but let's be honest: Low damage high defense turtles are already a bad option.

Only because casters (the most essential part of the party at higher levels) tend more toward the offensive builds, and mixed parties don't do well. If you can give me a good defensive wizard build (I already have one for druid), and ban cheese like stacking CL bonuses, I suspect I could make a defensive party capable of holding its own.

Re: Armor Fix Idea [D&D 3.5]

Originally Posted by Seerow

Also, this does make converting monsters a little trickier, they (mostly) don't get bonus attacks from BAB, but instead from extra natural attacks. Would you make it still scale with itteratives (making monsters a little weaker since they don't get them), based on natural attacks, or based on BAB regardless of iteratives?

For monsters wearing armor, I would simply go based on BAB. Technically, I would do that with characters, and tying it to BABs 6/11/16 makes it easy on everyone since it's a milestone players are already familiar with. Not sure I'd use a system like this for natural armor, as most monsters already have tons of it. Alternatively, give a weaker conversion rate for natural armor.

Originally Posted by Yitzi

Yeah, I suppose when not dealing with duels, focus fire can do the job.

This is actually rather attractive -- if the only reasonable way to bring down the armored opponent is to focus fire them, then that "mass aggro" is a pretty decent tank mechanic. Counterpoint: this makes a tank's needs to have threatening abilities even more pronounced, as opponents are even more likely to ignore them as soon as they see the dreaded heavy armor and walk around them.

@Seerow: I assume you intend to use this along with a suggestion you made in another thread about having move speed penalties based solely on player Encumbrance, as opposed to having special rules inherent to medium/heavy armor?

Because that is the most blessedly simple armor fix I've seen yet. Obviously not all-inclusive of armor's problems but dear Lord. How did I miss that there are 2 systems in place to punish wearers-of-lots-of-gear to hit you twice with penalties?

Re: Armor Fix Idea [D&D 3.5]

@Seerow: I assume you intend to use this along with a suggestion you made in another thread about having move speed penalties based solely on player Encumbrance, as opposed to having special rules inherent to medium/heavy armor?

Because that is the most blessedly simple armor fix I've seen yet. Obviously not all-inclusive of armor's problems but dear Lord. How did I miss that there are 2 systems in place to punish wearers-of-lots-of-gear to hit you twice with penalties?

Yes, if you check my Weapons, Upgrades, And More thread, I actually just updated the armor section to reflect that line of thinking.

That thread I'm keeping all of my changes to the gear itself, and core rules directly related to the gear. In this thread, I'm looking at a more radical change to the nature of Armor/AC in general. ie a baseline systemic change as opposed to a functionality change.

Right now I am working on a bigger write up for this, but I'm currently focusing on the fixing the RNG part as opposed to the temp HP part. I'm having a lot of trouble balancing it with Armor still providing an AC bonus, because you end up with hit rates akin to low levels (ie +4-5 vs 18 AC) across all levels, where ideally you want hit rates to be a little bit higher.

...actually, if I just shift it so that the baseline AC is 5 instead of 10, it should fit into place almost perfectly. That would get you a first level AC of 5+5(armor)+2(dex) = 12 vs +5 to hit. The hit bonus and AC both vary a little, but not more than a couple points in either direction. I think this could be a viable alternative to having to rewrite all armors specifically to accomodate a fixed rng.

If my text is blue, I'm being sarcastic.But you already knew that, right?

Re: Armor Fix Idea [D&D 3.5]

Originally Posted by Just to Browse

Are armor bonuses decreased at all? I don't seem to see anything of the sort... so you're going with the harder to hit + more HP thing?

Yeah. Decided to just go with "Heavier armor has a benefit now. Hey it doesn't suck now!" rather than worrying about trying to apply nerfs to specific armor types. So Armor itself was left alone, but the buff given was a smaller one, so a nerf wouldn't be needed to balance it out.

If I were going to make a nerf to heavier armors to compensate, it would be something generic like -1 AC to medium armors, and -2 AC to heavy armors (with an extra -1 to full plate), but then that leads to weirdness like a chain shirt being equivalent to splint mail, and basically guaranteeing that light armor reins supreme over everything always. And that's lame.

Last edited by Seerow; 2012-01-11 at 12:41 AM.

If my text is blue, I'm being sarcastic.But you already knew that, right?

Re: Armor Fix Idea [D&D 3.5]

Originally Posted by Seerow

For example, converting a Dire Tiger: it is CR 8 large creature. So its natural armor + dex should equal 11. It has a +2 dexterity, so the Dire Tiger gets 9 natural armor. As it is a CR 8 animal (3/4 BAB), it gets a +6 BAB. Thus its total AC is 5+6(3/4 CR)+9(natural)+2(Dex)-1(Size) = 21

I'm having problems with understanding this. Is that supposed to read "So its natural armor + size mod should equal 11"? And if this is correct, you're saying that you're subtracting the -1 size mod (the same as adding 1). Or else I'm totally confused.

For the armor-temp-HP thing, it's interesting to note that there are a LOT of ways this can be accomplished. Large per-encounter pools, or even a large pool that only refreshes when you take the time to repair your armor, using specific rules. Example: You may make a Craft (armorsmithing) check to repair straps, knock out dents, etc, to restore (craft result) of your armor's HP pool. This takes 10 minutes. That would let you make 6 attempts while your wizard memorizes spells in the morning. I would eschew gold costs, though.

The per-round formula could be worked a lot of different ways, too. So definitely post back if you ever get to test these changes. One thing which smooths out the progression instead of sudden leaps in efficacy at certain BAB milestones is having a formula which increases by level - whether through BAB yet again (not fond of this when adding BAB to AC already), simply adding the player's HD, whatever - and multiplying the result based on armor grade. e.g. double for medium and triple for heavy.

Re: Armor Fix Idea [D&D 3.5]

Originally Posted by Pechvarry

I'm having problems with understanding this. Is that supposed to read "So its natural armor + size mod should equal 11"? And if this is correct, you're saying that you're subtracting the -1 size mod (the same as adding 1). Or else I'm totally confused.

The example was apparently kind of confusing, the easiest way to look at it is to just take the base formula provided and sub things in.

I think I'll probably rewrite the example using that instead of what I have. It should make more sense that way. If you're still confused let me know.

For the armor-temp-HP thing, it's interesting to note that there are a LOT of ways this can be accomplished. Large per-encounter pools, or even a large pool that only refreshes when you take the time to repair your armor, using specific rules. Example: You may make a Craft (armorsmithing) check to repair straps, knock out dents, etc, to restore (craft result) of your armor's HP pool. This takes 10 minutes. That would let you make 6 attempts while your wizard memorizes spells in the morning. I would eschew gold costs, though.

The per-round formula could be worked a lot of different ways, too. So definitely post back if you ever get to test these changes. One thing which smooths out the progression instead of sudden leaps in efficacy at certain BAB milestones is having a formula which increases by level - whether through BAB yet again (not fond of this when adding BAB to AC already), simply adding the player's HD, whatever - and multiplying the result based on armor grade. e.g. double for medium and triple for heavy.

Well I think there's a certain elegance to getting more hp at the same time as getting more attacks. It helps slightly with keeping defense up to par with offense. If/when I get a campaign going with this I'll probably make changes, but for now I'm actually pretty happy with it. I think a smaller refreshing pool is more interesting than a large pool that doesn't refresh. If you just give a huge pool that doesnt refresh until the next day, the character feels invincible for the first few fights, and really squishy at the end of the day. Some people may enjoy that, but I personally do not.

If my text is blue, I'm being sarcastic.But you already knew that, right?

Re: Armor Fix Idea [D&D 3.5]

So what were to happen if I, say, made a suit of armor out of shields?

Well then, now you're just being silly

But seriously at that point it would be treated as armor. The shield is treated differently because it's being wielded in one hand and actively used, while the armor is worn.

Shields do come off feeling a little weaker through this, but their benefit should be more in other areas (through skilled uses via feats and maneuvers) than through passive bonuses. Speaking of I should double check with my combat style feats and see if there's stuff there that breaks the RNG or otherwise doesn't play nice with this. Because knowing me there is.

If my text is blue, I'm being sarcastic.But you already knew that, right?

Re: Armor Fix Idea [D&D 3.5]

The first step to making armor more useful is to bring the RNG in line, so armor can be more useful in a wider variety of situations. To fix the RNG, the following changes are to be made:

Natural Armor and Armor no longer stack-Natural armor acts in all ways like regular armor that is a part of your body, and has no weight or other penalties.Shields now provide a deflection bonus to AC-With this change, Shields now provide a potentially higher and cheaper way to gain a deflection bonus to AC, but the two cannot be stacked. This does weaken shields, but for the purposes of narrowing the RNG this really had to happen.Base Attack Bonus is added to AC-This is the biggest change, but all characters get a scaling bonus to armor class. This both helps high BAB classes, and provides much needed scaling to keep up with attack bonuses. A character using the same gear at level 20 is going to have a much better defense than at level 1. Iterative Attacks cap at a -5 penalty-That is to say that PCs now follow the same rules for attacking monsters have always followed. So a level 16 Fighter on a full attack has an attack sequence of 16/11/11/11. This is done to ensure the attacks remain on the RNG, with the raised AC later iteratives were even more likely to be useless.Base Armor is 5, not 10-This is a simple change that was needed to make it possible to balance the RNG without rewriting all of the armors. The basic reason is because attack rolls get their highest attribute, but armor gets the armor value plus an attribute, at a value that's always equal to roughly 8. This means until attack attributes hit 8, armor has an advantage right out of the gate.

These changes pretty much cover it for how to affect player characters. High ACs are now doable without spending half your gold on assorted bonuses from gear. A 20th level character is now most likely to have an AC of around 45+deflection mod. Attack bonuses at this level are usually around 35-40, so this seems like a good place to be.

One further change currently under consideration is the limitation of deflection bonuses. For example making it so shields can't be enchanted with +x modifiers (though could still get +x equivalent enchantments, waiving the normal +1 minimum requirement), and capping deflection bonuses at +2 across the board. Currently a character can get 50-52 AC with full BAB, capped armor, and a shield, this is nearly impossible to be hit by a medium BAB character, and at this time I'm not sure that's a good thing.

Love the write up, particularly this section about the RNG. Do you mind if I shamelessly steal borrow some sections of it for my own homebrew?
I'm not entirely sold on the necessity of Temp-HP instead of DR, but you can probably just chalk that up to my lack of experience with high level campaigns.

I do have one or two little issues that are still niggling at me though. The first is linking the scaling of AC to BAB. The medium BAB classes (rogues, monk, TWF rangers) are in melee combat nearly as much Warriors and Paladins, and there is no guarantee the demon you're fighting won't turn around and try to gib them, or that the horde of orcs will all line up and politely wait for a shot at your party's meatshield.
What if we let AC scale just with ECL or HD, rather than BAB? Yes it means that wizards and sorcerers get a full Base Armor Class (BAC) but I can't think of a better way that won't penalize quite a few melee-based players.

The second thing is, since heavy armor is now definitely better than medium or light armor from a pure defensive point of view, can we either increase or remove the Max-Dex Bonus? At higher levels, it's restrictive enough that some Dexterity based builds forego armor entirely, and under your system that leaves them very (comparatively) squishy.
Or are you worried that higher Dex scores will combine with your improved AC to make some classes untouchable?

Last edited by Deepbluediver; 2012-01-11 at 09:30 PM.

Originally Posted by Rater202

It's not called common because the sense is common, it's called common because it's about common things.

Re: Armor Fix Idea [D&D 3.5]

Love the write up, particularly this section about the RNG. Do you mind if I shamelessly steal borrow some sections of it for my own homebrew?

Steal away. A large part of the fixing the RNG was lifted straight from Legend (though some of the changes were my own. Keeping higher armor values and varied armor, while reducing base AC for example).

I do have one or two little issues that are still niggling at me though. The first is linking the scaling of AC to BAB. The medium BAB classes (rogues, monk, TWF rangers) are in melee combat nearly as much Warriors and Paladins, and there is no guarantee the demon you're fighting won't turn around and try to gib them, or that the horde of orcs will all line up and politely wait for a shot at your party's meatshield.

Rangers: Already have full BAB. Think you're confused here.

Rogues: Have dex as a primary stat, by high levels they could have a slight AC advantage there (especially if you use my armor system, where max dex costs half as much as a flat armor bonus).

Monks: Should have full BAB anyway. But besides that they have an untyped AC bonus, and wisdom as a bonus to AC. If anything I'd be worried about them having too high of an AC, not too low. A 20th level monk could end up with something like 5+15(BAB)+8(bracers of armor)+8(dex)+6(wis)+4(monk bonus)+2 (deflection) = 48, with relatively low attributes.

Basically Rogues seem like the most likely to suffer, but they're traditionally relatively easy to hit and squishy, so I'm not sure that's a bad thing. They won't be so squishy that they're unusable, they'll still dodge some attacks, they'll just get hit a bit more than the guy with a heavier combat focus... which is pretty much the intent.

The second thing is, since heavy armor is now definitely better than medium or light armor from a pure defensive point of view, can we either increase or remove the Max-Dex Bonus? At higher levels, it's restrictive enough that some Dexterity based builds forego armor entirely, and under your system that leaves them very (comparatively) squishy.
Or are you worried that higher Dex scores will combine with your improved AC to make some classes untouchable?

This is a reasonable request. But yes, I am worried about having armor bonus and unlimited dexterity. Having that situation makes it harder to control the RNG. I could see maybe some way of scaling max dex at higher levels (special materials giving a little more leeway, or adding enhancement bonus to max dex, so padded armor at level 20 would have like 13 max dex, which is enough for the majority of characters while still having 7 armor of its own).

Alternatively, using my equipment system (see the topic Weapons, Upgrades, and More) allows for higher max dex via masterwork upgrades, or crafting a weapon with a higher max dex from the start. You can increase max dex by 2 for the same cost as +1 armor, allowing for a bit better scaling for high dex characters. (the top end I believe would be a custom masterwork heavy armor with all slots going into max dex, giving you +2 armor and +20 max dex). [yes, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense that heavy armor has a potentially better max dex, but the idea both there and here is heavy armor is supposed to be a harder to get proficiency. Heavy Armor requires both light and medium proficiency. Because of this it should be strictly better, just not better enough that everyone without it is totally gimped)

If my text is blue, I'm being sarcastic.But you already knew that, right?

Re: Armor Fix Idea [D&D 3.5]

Shall I assume you'd make the same arguments about the Bard you made for the Rogue?

Alternatively getting off topic; while the cap on the penalty for iterative attacks makes this less critical, how badly boggled would things get if we just eliminated the middle BAB from the game altogether, so classes had only a good/bad option, like for saves?

Alternatively, using my equipment system (see the topic Weapons, Upgrades, and More) allows for higher max dex via masterwork upgrades, or crafting a weapon with a higher max dex from the start.

Oh don't worry, I know where to find your customization system.
And while I love it for weapons, it just doesn't seem as exciting for armor, somehow.

Originally Posted by Rater202

It's not called common because the sense is common, it's called common because it's about common things.